For every time you've hit snooze and seriously considered playing hooky from that insufferable ancient history lecture; for every time you've deadpanned "Bueller? Bueller?" in an empty meeting room; for every time you've busted out a dance move to The Beatles' hit "Twist and Shout" or jammed to a song by the California-based band Rooney, take a split second to thank the powers that be for one John Hughes - the man behind the classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Without the genius of director Hughes, the majority of modern pop culture would never have reached the peaks it resides on today. And without the wit and charm of Matthew Broderick (who is slated to appear at the Virginia Film Festival on Nov. 8), Ferris Bueller would never haunt our collective psyche the way he does today.
We've all taken "days off," and they're fine. Sometimes, they are actually great. But for the most part, skipping out on all our responsibilities and obligations is harder in action than in thought - just look at all your classmates glued to their iPhones and laptops. But the magic of Hughes and Ferris lies in that now-infamous line: "Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." In this film, Hughes ultimately draws out all our innermost desires and replaces them with the images of the ultimate teenage and high school experience.
The concept is simple: Ferris, the ultimate "Big Man on Campus," doesn't want to go to school. It's his senior year of high school and, more importantly, it's a beautiful spring day. So he convinces his doting, helicopter parents that he's "sick," cons the school into letting his girlfriend out of class, and hits up the big city of Chicago with said girlfriend and best friend, Cameron, to have tons of amazing adventures - and then sneaks back into the house under the noses of his parents and the blundering, obsequious Dean of Students, Ed Rooney.
The cinematic glory of Ferris Bueller has reigned over modern culture for decades now. Released in 1986, the wit and comedy of the Hughes-Broderick team captured everything glorious about the 1980s - from sister Jeanie's wardrobe to the collective attitude and social hierarchy of high school - and made it a staple of our cultural cache. The film's message - that sometimes, it is perfectly acceptable, even good, to live life in the moment - continues to inform our consciousness. The culture and society Hughes captures is starting to reemerge on the radar of contemporary times, and the punch lines and shenanigans Bueller pulls throughout the film continue to dominate our pop culture register. In other words, if "Save Ferris" means nothing to you, I'm not really sure what does.
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
